Resilience

Editor’s Note: The fourth World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association will take place in Orlando Florida starting Thursday evening, June 25 and running through Sunday June 28. The Saturday night of IPPA is usually a gala event. The Author’s Note below includes an invitation to participate in an event that is both a celebration of being together and an opportunity to contribute to a non-profit that benefits hospitalized children. Here’s the sign up link

While dashing to the train after my morning swim, I noticed a small pull in my brand-new navy stocking. By the time I got off the subway, my left leg resembled the tights of a punk-rocker. Not exactly the look I was striving for in a morning piled up with back-to-back meetings like a big stack of pancakes. The truth is, why did the wardrobe malfunction even matter?

That got me thinking. For some reason, I immediately recalled an improbably famous People Magazine cover from 1990. Cybill Shepherd smiles broadly, a dazzling Hollywood leading lady right off the red carpet. However, in spite of the A-list team of stylists, hair and makeup experts who surely spent hours creating the “perfect look” the most remarkable thing about the cover proved to be something rather unexpected. There was a significant run in her stocking. When the actress saw the wardrobe malfunction she laughed and was not interested in changing into a new pair. To the surprise of the editorial team, hundreds of readers actually wrote letters thanking Ms. Shepherd for presenting herself as a regular person, runs in her stockings and all.

Each of us is wonderfully imperfect, including glamorous celebrities who occasionally get a snag. Perhaps you can’t find your cell phone charger as your phone starts powering off just as your doctor or your best friend calls to give you some important news. Or you get immersed in a magazine article and forget that your favorite activity is about to start in the teen lounge. Once you remember that the class started twenty minutes ago you head for the lounge getting there just in time to see all of the other patients laughing and walking back to their rooms. You missed the entire experience. When you or someone you love is grappling with a serious illness, sometimes it is precisely these little daily indignations that can trigger a strong negative emotional response that can make the incident seem even worse.

Trade Perfectionism for Imperfectionism

When we free ourselves from setting impossibly high standards of self-perfection, our ability to accept mistakes, failures and painful emotions actually allows us to experience more happiness since we don’t let the mistake or the imperfection define us and take over our lives. In his book, The Pursuit of Perfect: How to Stop Chasing Perfection and Start Living a Richer, Happier Life., Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar talks about our own and society’s crushing expectations. According to Ben-Shahar, the pursuit of perfection may actually be the most powerful internal obstacle to happiness.

In my experience, I’ve found that some of the most authentic conversations with strangers, friends and people I’ve met while spending lots of time in hospitals have been conversations where people are courageous enough to be vulnerable, not trying to project an image that “they’ve got it together all the time.” When people share from this rich, authentic place of vulnerability, then everyone can feel a sense of relief, a sense of connection, and a sense of hope. Connections like this make us feel safe.

As human beings, our bodies are wired with a mammalian care system programmed to respond to warm, gentle touch or a soothing voice that makes us feel comforted and safe. Think of a human baby or a baby deer being cared for by its mother. When mammals are nurtured, their bodies release oxytocin the natural chemical that makes us feel safe and calm.

You are human. Be kind to yourself.

Studies show that people who have self-compassion are able to brush off set-backs, disappointments, and mistakes without blowing them out of proportion. Dr. Kristen Neff is an expert on self-compassion. She defines self-compassion as “the importance of putting ourself in the circle of compassion which means treating ourselves with the same kindness, care and concern that we would treat a good friend.”

Self-compassion is a way of relating to ourselves kindly, as we truly are, flaws and all. Neff shares the three elements of self-compassion:

Treat yourself with self-kindness.

Recognize that there is a common humanity. This is the process of “realizing how I am the same as others and that to be human is to be imperfect.” Recognition of our shared human experience allows us to feel connected to others, instead of feeling isolated in our suffering.

Be mindful. Neff defines this as being with “what is” in the present moment. When we notice we are feeling isolated or suffering, then this is precisely the time to give ourselves some self-compassion.

So the next time you experience a setback, simply stop and take a deep breath. Instead of taking it out on yourself with self-criticism, shame, anger, and other negative emotions, take another deep breath and give yourself a gentle hug or kind word. This simple step takes less than ten seconds and can prevent you from falling into a black hole of negative emotions and despair.

The more self-compassion you practice, the easier it becomes to replace the negative self-criticism with warm and loving self-talk. In doing this simple ritual you’ll be able to celebrate your wonderful imperfections as part of the glorious, messy journey to your true authentic self.

As I got into the elevator at my office building, I looked down at my disheveled blue stockings and quickly turned the run towards the inside of my leg where it was slightly less obvious. I confidently walked out of the elevator into the rest of my day. Later that night, the tangled hosiery was tossed into the trash while self-compassion helped me keep my spirit from landing in the garbage.

What could be better than hearing the ROCK STARS of Positive Psychology at the IPPA World Congress? Dancing with them at the Saturday night party. Come out and dance with Barb Fredrickson, Tal Ben-Shahar, Corey Keyes, Kim Cameron, and many of your favorite positive psychology heroes!

Together we will have a blast and meet new friends in a fun and energizing experience. IPPA has teamed up with Soaringwords, a non-profit organization that lessens the negative impact of serious illness by embracing hospitalized children and families to encourage positive health and healing. In this action-packed social activity you will harness your unique VIA Character Strengths to create a SoaringSuperhero puppet to donate to a hospitalized child.

Marcie Benevides and DJ Francis

Afterwards, we will Rock the World with a Zumba Master Class featuring world-renowned instructors Marcie Benevides, Fabio Barros, and several IPPA superstars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE1XCjiyb94

Many positive psychology luminaries (Jonathan Haidt, Shane Lopez, Jane Dutton and dozens more are donating autographed books for the raffle.

Dance, laugh, do something fun and meaningful to “pay it forward” for ill children. 100% of the entry fee supports Soaringwords’ Hospital Outreach programs in hospitals around the world. Watch a brief video of Soaring Words and Zumba in hospital..
Donation $20 per person, $30 VIP ticket includes t-shirt. Sign up today, and share this invitation with your friends and family.

I was touched by many of the stories in Same Time Next Week. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did, but I found myself thinking about some of the stories long after I read them. I especially enjoyed the stories by individuals who personally experienced mental health disorders. They described the essential features of their recoveries, some of which are completely unexpected. Each story, whether by a therapist or a patient, is well-written from a personal perspective and reads like a mini-novel.

As a practicing psychotherapist, I will recommend this book to clients to inspire them. I will also recommend it to other therapists, especially ones who work in institutional settings where burnout is high and perhaps they have lost hope. For me, the key to helping my clients is to believe 100% that they can change their lives. In this book review, I will highlight a few of my favorite ideas and stories.

Beyond Despair: The Gift of Recovery

In the foreword, Karen Wolk Feinstein describes some ideas of “what makes life worth living, minimize the pain of a mental affliction and allow some measure of daily joy and peace.” She concludes that some key factors are having a good therapist, finding the right combination of medications, having a loving and responsive parental figure, and having a loving and caring adult partner. Feinstein says, “Progress seldom comes in a straight line: courage, determination, and patience are required.”

What Works When Nothing Has Worked

Peter Kramer, author of the bestseller, Listening to Prozac, says, “In practice, most patients who seek treatment respond to it.” He cites a study showing that 90% of patients who followed through experienced substantial improvement.

Steep climbing

I agree with this conclusion. I tell my patients that recovery is like climbing a mountain. You will go up a little, then down a little, but if you keep climbing you will eventually reach the top of the mountain. But even when you reach the top, you need to continue using your skills because you might need to climb down a little to reach the next mountain range.

Overcoming Institutional Failure

In Lee Gutkind’s Editor’s Note, he highlights the concept of “institutional failure,” the idea that patients often receive inadequate and sometimes harmful treatment. The book highlights stories of hope and also describes ways in which traditional psychotherapy can be demotivating and blame patients for their problems. That part of the book was disheartening to me. A mental health professional needs to maintain a sense of hope and believe in each client’s recovery. To me, that is the absolute minimum requirement for helping people.

In particular, Sharron Koy’s story “No Hope? Don’t Believe It,” chronicles her difficulties with mental health professionals who stigmatized her with the misdiagnosis of borderline personality disorder and how that label followed her around, even getting her fired from her first job as a registered nurse.

The Dictator In My Head

The Dictator

As a cognitive behavior therapist specializing in anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), I found this story hit the nail on the head. Kurt Warner describes his struggle with the “dictator living in my head” and how he learned to manage OCD. He describes the dictator as using “fear, coercion, and constant threats” and being a “tyrant, bully and dictator.” He says the problem is that by doing what the dictator says, OCD only gets stronger. He describes the many manifestations of OCD he experienced from counting to checking to obsessions with germs to needing to have a good thought and the right feeling before moving on.

Kurt learned that a type of therapy called Exposure and Response Prevention, which he implemented through self-help, was extremely effective. He learned to “beat OCD back” by “methodically and routinely disobeying its orders (compulsions) and ignoring its obsessions.” He says, “To obey its compulsions is to feed it and allow the beast to grow…I feed OCD by obedience and starve it by disobedience.” He says he still gets obsessions and compulsions but he manages them by knowing they are not real and simply not acknowledging them.

Jeannie

I enjoyed reading the story about Jeannie by Miriam Mandel Levi because I work with many children and teenagers with selective mutism, and adults where it eventually morphs into social anxiety.

Speechless

Jeannie sounds like a non-typical case in that her mutism started in her late teens/young adulthood. Selective mutism usually starts in early childhood and is noticed when children start school and a caring teacher realizes that the child is not speaking or responding to teachers and peers even though parents report that their daughter or son acts like a perfectly normal child at home. In Jeannie’s case, she stopped talking in all situations and was diagnosed with pervasive refusal syndrome, which is not actually a diagnosis in the DSM 5. Jeannie withdrew socially and did not eat, drink, talk, walk or engage in any type of self-care.

Levi reports that Jeannie needed “a process that was gradual enough that she felt in control.” This is often the case with the patients I have treated with selective mutism. We must proceed at a painstakingly slow rate that often frustrates parents and teachers. As Levi did with Jeannie, we teach patients to move slowly from non-verbal communication to simple sounds and words, eventually resulting in sentences and, in the most successful cases, leading to complete speech. Levi ends the story by saying, “Progress was agonizingly slow, the changes small and hard won, but they were changes all the same and changes meant hope.”

Live A Little

Ellen Holtzman works with Ann, a patient with drug addiction and an underlying anxiety disorder. It is quite common that people with anxiety use alcohol, drugs, binge eating, shopping and other addictive, compulsive behaviors to self-medicate and numb feelings.

Figure skating

Holzman reports that when Ann became clean and sober, her anxiety increased. While cognitive behavior therapy is the gold standard for the treatment of anxiety disorders, Holtzman used a more eclectic approach, borrowing from different therapeutic schools of thought and listening to the patient with an open mind and personalized treatment.

Holtzman hypothesizes that her ability to listen to Ann, especially her stories of sexual abuse, was a big part of Ann’s healing process. Ann ends up making many positive changes in her life, such as driving her car in the face of anxiety (a standard exposure therapy approach), taking up figure skating, planning a vacation to Costa Rica, and taking a watercolor class.

Paradise/Lost

The story by Jennifer Lunden was the most touching to me. Lunden tells the story of Astra’s struggles with her sexuality and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Astra had an inability to connect with others on an intimate level and thought of “sex like dancing. It’s just something that feels good and is fun to do with another person.”

Like dancing

Astra also struggled with organizing her life and completing projects because everything felt too daunting so she felt overwhelmed and didn’t do anything. In the end, Astra credits a lot of her recovery with her therapist’s willingness to be a real human and use appropriate self-disclosure. Lunden says Astra highlighted “the pivotal session when she (Lunden) asked me to be more direct about my thoughts, feelings and biases” and Astra said, “I had a space where you would call me out. I needed to know I was talking with someone very human and with real opinions.”

Have Hope: Recovery is Possible

I believe that with a passionate committed therapist who practices evidence-based yet personalized therapy combined with a patient who keeps showing up, recovery is the rule, not the exception. Gutkind says, “With hard work, and empathic, passionate support, those who are suffering from mental illness can regain hope, build a sense of accomplishment and survive.”

Having recently completed the dissertation for my MAPP program, I can now reflect on the final few weeks before my submission. I felt pressured, had a drop in my well-being, and struggled to get into flow. Worse still, I wasn’t great company to be around. I was often lost in my own thoughts, mainly about what I still needed to do. I wasn’t very talkative since struggling to put a sentence together seemed to take creativity I didn’t have left over.

I thought to myself, as a student and researcher of positive psychology, how could I be unhappy and not flourishing?

At least I wasn’t languishing.

With the benefit of reflection, I can now see that areas of positive psychology at least played a part in preventing me from languishing. Keyes suggested that there could be a continuum of mental health, from the full presence of mental health called flourishing to the complete absence of mental health called languishing. In the effort to complete my dissertation I may not have been fully flourishing, but I certainly wasn’t languishing.

What kept me from dipping into languishing? I displayed hope that I would finish the dissertation to the standard I wanted and resilience to withstand the pressure of completing a major project while holding down a full-time job and having a family.

Additionally, I realized that my strengths kept me from languishing too. Humor helped to alleviate stress from spiraling out of control, gratitude enabled me to appreciate the good things in my life, and perspective helped me remember what I wanted to achieve with my dissertation.

The Role of Hope

Snyder defined hope as the combination of mental willpower and strategies that one pulls together in order to reach one’s goals. Willpower may be related to the strength of persistence from CAPP’s Realise2 classification of strengths, whereby a person can keep going to ensure that a goal is achieved despite challenges.

Writer’s block

For me, the challenges were

Time: both meeting the deadline and fitting the dissertation into my life. I had recently started a new job and was required to travel all over the country, often at short notice. This made fitting in time for the dissertation even more difficult.

Finding the inspiration to break through the writer’s block. I often struggle to put down on paper what is in my head. So it wasn’t just writer’s block that I came up against, but also the fact that I’m not adept at writing long assignments.

Finding meaning in my research results. My goal was to enable salespeople to perform effectively in their roles by discovering and applying their strengths appropriately. I wanted to create a strengths-based selling process.

Even though at times I doubted myself and my ability to complete the dissertation, my willpower to succeed with my goal won through, even though my strengths usually lie more in discussing things with others and taking physical action rather than writing by myself and paying attention to detail.

Strengths Supporting Willpower

To complement my willpower, I stayed focused on the end result that I wanted to achieve. I also used mindfulness and finding ways to apply my strengths.

Focusing on the end result motivated me to ensure that I made it become a reality.

The practice of mindfulness enabled me to quiet the conflicting thoughts in my head, thereby freeing me from writer’s block. This permitted me to become creative again and put pen to paper.

Finally, I thought about ways I could apply my strengths, in the appropriate context and measure, in order to overcome any issues and to complete my dissertation. I wrote down on a daily basis three strengths that I applied the previous day. This really helped to boost my well-being and support my determination to succeed. Here are some examples of the strengths I wrote down:

Strategic awareness to generate ideas for a new product with a director

Listening to notice what a client was really asking for and what colleagues were not aware of and reflecting the client’s requirements back to them

Using humor to make my colleagues laugh and relieve the tension in a meeting

So now I await the results of the dissertation in the knowledge that hope and resilience played a key role in helping me to prepare it for submission.

For example, let’s say you’ve been asked to submit a proposal to a prospective client. It’s late in the day and you’re just beginning to fill in your company’s background information, but you can’t seem to coherently string together your ideas. You begin to get frustrated. Instead of calling it a day, or, at the very least, taking a break, you stay at your desk and force yourself to keep at it until you arrive at a “perfectly” clear and concise response.

Now, let’s flip to what the research tells us. Even though it seems like a great idea at the time to push yourself to the nth degree, this kind of extreme focus and control can greatly undermine your ability to achieve the outcome you desire most, a clear, concise, and creative response.

As a matter of fact, research by Daniel Wegner, a psychology professor at Harvard, explains the nuances of this dilemma. Daniel adopted a theory called ironic process, which suggests that the mind will unconsciously search for an unwanted mental state. In this instance, we accidentally engender a narrow, limiting perspective when we pour energy into fostering a creative mindset.

Along the same lines, neuroscience research has shown we have our greatest moments of insight and creativity when the mind is calm and relaxed. You probably didn’t need me to remind you of that! Have you ever had a moment of clarity or insight in the shower? What about while spending time in nature? Isn’t it ironic that withdrawing your focus from the goal or problem actually facilitates insight?

Using Moments of Stress to Remember to be Calm

I recognize many of us are required, all right maybe conditioned, to spend heaps of time at our computers, but this truly isn’t where our greatest moments of insight occur. One of the best things you can do is give your mind – and your brain – a break from such a diligent outward focus. Allow it to rest and recover the same way you would your biceps if you were engaging in a strength-training regime.

When I first discovered this research, it caused me to reflect on my own work habits. I could see places where I’d unknowingly fallen into the trap of overworking and overthinking in an attempt to cross one more thing off my to-do list. After becoming aware of this habit, I began to use moments of stress, rushing, and confusion as reminders to slow down, take a breather, and draw my attention inward. Sometimes I would step outdoors to feel the breeze on my skin or listen to the cacophony of birds. Other times, I’d simply close my eyes and feel the natural rhythm of my breath. In any case, I discovered that allowing myself to shift my focus away from the task at hand naturally brought on a sense of ease that facilitated greater insight down the road.

Certain work habits run deep in our culture. To name a few: Work ourselves to exhaustion, don’t take breaks, stare down a problem until you reach a solution, multitask, and do more in less time. Sometimes these habits are both necessary and effective. But more times than not, I see people unconsciously operating from these principles without carefully considering the impact on their inner state and outer performance.

Upon asking if such habits enhance efficiency or effectiveness, most immediately respond with a “No.” So while my advice may seem a little odd, I do believe that we can both quiet stress and enhance creative problem solving by doing the exact opposite of what we think we should do. Namely, ease up on yourself about checking everything off your to-do list, take breaks (I mean, really take them), shift your focus away from a complex problem before settling on a solution, unitask, and slow down every once in a while!

Recently a friend recommended I read the children’s book, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, about the highs and lows of a boy with a severe facial disfigurement as he attends middle school for the first time. It’s a brilliant book, very thought provoking on the nature of resilience and friendship. It explores character strengths, especially courage and kindness, although it references many others too. It deserves all the accolades it has received.

Many passages, lines and even phrases stick in my memory. This quotation in the book got me thinking about writing this piece:

“When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind” ~ Dr Wayne W Dyer

Random Acts of Kindness (RAK)

Kindness is a constantly popular topic in positive psychology, and it’s been in the news a lot recently too, particularly the Random Acts variety. One reason is as an antidote to the YouTube NekNominate craze, in which participants film themselves drinking a pint of beer or other alcoholic drink in one go, upload it to the web, and then dare two other people to do the same within 24 hours.

The UK’s Daily Telegraph reported how the South African Brent Lindeque decided not to bow to the pressure of NekNominate and started his own online challenge instead by filming himself handing out food and drink to people in need then nominating two friends to do their own acts of kindness. Brent (who, it has to be said, runs a brand marketing company so knows a thing or two about product placement and tipping points!) said he hoped the video would inspire everyone to do good for others.

What’s really interesting about this clip is the reactions of the drivers receiving his free gift. Most of us would expect them to be positive and fortunately most are (at least, the ones caught on film!) So there are drivers who are genuinely pleased or grateful to be given a chocolate, and /or want to reciprocate by giving Devon a donation.

Then there’s the driver who refuses to take a chocolate. He’s already eating his breakfast in the car. But at the same time he looks suspicious, as if he believes there has to be a catch to the offer. Another driver reacts in the opposite way, immediately taking advantage of the freebie by asking for more than one, then giving a rather embarrassed look at the camera. Others seem less positive towards Devon’s random act of kindness. One driver doesn’t want to wind down the window at all, gesturing wildly in the car that she has nothing to give. “No, this is for you!”, says Devon, emphatically thrusting the chocolate bar at the car window, so the driver winds it down a few inches. As soon as he says he’s not asking for payment, the driver readily puts her hand out to take the chocolate. The passenger in another car looks genuinely puzzled. Why would some guy stand on the corner of a busy junction during morning rush hour handing out free chocolate to strangers? This is not normal behavior!

It’s been suggested that it may be the randomness of acts of kindness which unsettles people. For most of us randomness just doesn’t make sense. Which means that acts of kindness might be more appreciated when they’re done in context, when the receiver can understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Or perhaps they’ll appreciate it more when they’ve asked for the help that you’re giving. But that’s another story.

Devon Stanton wore a hand-made sign, mentioning NekNominate, but if you hadn’t heard of it, you’d be none the wiser. A female driver asks how her taking the free chocolate bar is helping him. Saying that he hoped she might be inspired to pay it forward and do a kind deed for others obviously would have spoiled the effect.

What this video aptly illustrates is that doing RAKs may make you feel great, but they may not always get the positive and upbeat response you’d expect and may not be appreciated by the recipient, even if well intended. That’s a tough one for positive psychology to crack.

A Way of Life

Towards the end of Wonder, the head teacher, Mr Tushman, gives a speech at the graduation ceremony. He quotes from The Little White Bird by J.M. Barrie:

“Shall we make a new rule of life…always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?” Here Mr Tushman looked up at the audience. “Kinder than is necessary”, he repeated. “What a marvelous line, isn’t it? Kinder than is necessary. Because it’s not enough to be kind. One should be kinder than needed. Why I love that line, that concept, is that it reminds me that we carry with us, as human beings, not just the capacity to be kind, but the very choice of kindness.”

But somehow, being non-randomly kind (being kind on the spur of the moment just because that’s what you do, not because you’ve got a RAKnomination and have thought about it) doesn’t have the same kudos.

I have a friend, Nancy, whose top VIA strength is kindness. She goes out of her way to help others in small ways and large. Last year she painted the hall and stairs woodwork for a friend who hadn’t done it before the carpet was due to be fitted. The friend could have done it or paid a handyman, but Nancy stepped in.

My stepfather Chris also offers to help anyone and everyone, much to my mother’s annoyance. I can’t imagine either of them making the front pages of the Daily Telegraph. “Woman is kind to friend!” or “Grandfather helps his neighbor!” just wouldn’t grab the headlines. Random acts of kindness are more appealing and perhaps more inspiring than the run-of-the-mill everyday type of kindness. It’s interesting to contemplate why this might be so.

I don’t want to dismiss or detract from all the kind deeds that people are randomly doing for strangers but we should take a moment to celebrate all the non-randomly kind people, the people like Nancy and Chris, who are thoughtful and helpful to others simply because that’s who they are.

Which brings me to another fabulous quotation from Wonder:

“Everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their life.”

So why not give a standing ovation now to all the non-randomly kind people in your life?

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